I’m a sophomore in high school and I’ve always thought history was a really interesting subject but I’m aware that I’m missing out on a lot of it, whenever we start learning something we don’t go into much detail and we move on after about a month. So far this semester my teacher has talked about the French Revolution, industrialization, and now we’re starting a unit on the British in India. What we did learn was pretty vague though. I want to start studying history on my own time but it’s kind of overwhelming since I have no idea where to start. So could someone who’s well educated on world history as a whole reply with a certain era or event that I should get into? Any country, any time period, I don’t care. Preferably something that would help me have a better understanding on current day politics though.

I'm wondering how someone would go about picking someone for their child to marry and how they'd organize the whole thing. I'm writing a story where in the beginning the main character, who is the princess and next in line for the throne, is going to be married to a prince in another kingdom soon. In the story I had the idea to have the Emperor (her father) put on a big party and dinner where he'd invite leaders from other kingdoms and she could meet her suitors there and after him and the Empress would decide who was best for her based on the political advantages and how the his and the leaders he'd be meeting with's visions for the future seemed to align based on the meeting. I'm trying to figure out if this is at all realistic and if not, how unrealistic it is, and what is realistic.

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I'm looking more for the early Medieval period around England or France but I'm not necessarily picky as I'm writing a fantasy story and I'm not married to one particular time period or place with something like this, I've just tended to gravitate more towards earlier in the Medieval period and towards France and England with my writing before.

One thing I have noticed about history is that at many times and in many places there has been a pattern of large structured societies fracturing into feudal states. These states fight it out for a while, sometimes centuries before someone comes along and conquers the majority of the society. This was what happened in Europe after the decline of Rome. It's what happened to China multiple times throughout its history. It's what happened to Japan in the Sengoku period.

I was wondering why we haven't seen anyone make a serious attempt at conquering Africa since the end of colonialism. Not all of Africa was decolonized at once but huge parts of it have been since the end of world war 2. In all that time, I'm surprised no one has tried to unify it. Now of course it's unlikely that anyone could succeed in doing so given how large it is but I still don’t see why no one has made a serious attempt at controlling a large region of the continent. Shaka Zulu managed to make a good go at this during imperialism and so far as I understand it, this is kind of what Bolivar tried and failed to do in South America, so why not Africa?

I’ve been watching Hamilton recently (I am very aware of the historical inaccuracies in the play) and I was wondering how Lafayette, who had been a key figure in the American Revolution, felt when they didn’t aid the French when they needed it, as some might see it.

East Germany was created out of the Soviet occupation zone in the aftermath of World War II. It was essentially an artificially created state, a state not born from any sort of nationalist movement but merely a barrier for the Soviets against the West. Did East Germany ever attempt to develop its own creation myth or “backstory” to the nation itself? Or was German national history/mythos seen no differently to how it was in West Germany (excluding the communist doctrine of course)?

I can only find a couple of explanations for how trials worked in Anglo-Norman England, and they're all very vague. There's some mentions of judges and courts, but exactly how would something like a murder trial have gone down? Where would the trial have taken place, who would have delivered sentence? Would the nobility have faced the same trials as commoners?

I’m doing a bit of creative writing and had an idea for a character that was stripped of his land and titles after committing some atrocity. From what little I know of medieval history, however, I’m pretty sure knights engaged in a lot of questionable things and didn’t face any consequences. Is there any precedent for I’ve described?

I've seen passing references to 'shelter syndrome' and the idea that if you let Londoners shelter in the tunnels they'd not come up again, hampering war production - but it's seems bizarre? It's almost HG Wells type science fiction? What influenced policy makers into such an odd belief.

What happened to the biracial children born before Loving v. Virginia? Anytime I try to google said topic, search results are overwhelmed by the case itself.

There were several Nordic expeditions into North America before Columbus and they documented these expeditions.

I assume the existence of the Americas was more well known in the north and among the wealthy. I would also imagine that the knowledge the voyages would be pretty obscure in everywhere except Iceland and the people that did know about it either didn't have the resources act on the information or was indifferent to the existence of another continent. I'm pretty sure that most people that knew about the saga would not think of it has a myth, since that was how historical records were kept. But I could be wrong.

There also were a lot of migrations between Asia(including Polynesia) and the Americas but I don't think there was any contact for thousands of years before Columbus.

How common was the knowledge that the Americas existed in the old world before Columbus?

Also, do we know more about the general history of Ancient Egypt than Norse society?

After reading about the September Group and Operation Duck Hook, I am left wondering exactly how close was Nixon to nuking North Vietnam? Was the only thing holding him back public sentiment and possible retribution from another world power?

forgive my ignorance but how accurate is the presence of some species in egypt in ac origins,i know that some animals was there in that time like lions and leopards but were there any hippos or hyena's or elephants like the game shows ,also how accurate is Senu Being a bonelli's eagle as far as i know they are not native to egypt?

Either I'm uninformed about this matter and the opium problem remained present more than a century later, or China successfuly eradicated the opium "epidemic". If so, how did they do it?

There is a common narrative I have heard over the last 20 years that OBL intended for the US to be drawn into wars in the ME and to bankrupt them in a similar way to the Soviet Union was in Afghanistan, leaving room for the overthrow of ME despots and the installation of Salafist regimes.

However, the renowned OBL expert Peter Bergen has always had an alternative view, that OBL naively thought 9/11 would cause the US to withdraw from the ME, having looked at the example of Reagan withdrawing from Lebanon following the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings. Bergen says that OBL was surprised by the American invasion of Afghanistan and later tried to claim this was the result of some master plan.

The latter view seems more compelling to me, althoughI haven’t found any evidence to support either.

Does any exist?

Hello! Before I delve into specifics or, the specifics of the specific? I just want to say thank you for helping me on this subject because for some reason I can't seem to find any good books on the matter. All I ever find are colored illustrations of civilian fashion with no explanation on each piece of garment. I'm really interested in finding out because I'm currently writing a French officer in the backdrop of the Williamite war in Ireland and I wanted to be as accurate as possible. And also if you would be able to link some material or literature on the subject I'd appreciate it as I do have a passion for military history.

So some of the questions I have the first regard the attire of French soldiers, specifically the officer class.

1. What would the typical attire of a dragoon officer be when he's on the field? (Since European cavalry tactics evolved greatly, and the full-suit of armor was dropped for chest pieces in most cases)
2. What would the demeanor of a French officer be to his subordinates? Since the officer is from the gentry. (I would assume the same as in the 18th century where it was highly discouraged and often frowned upon for officers to socialize and fraternize with the enlisted)
3. Where there any other roles that dragoons were assigned other than mounted infantry and conventional cavalry?

I understand that covers a huge stretch of time. The Tang Dynasty is just an arbitrarily easier bookmark for my brain than the Sixteen Kingdoms.

In addition, I guess, when we refer to "ancient China", would that be closer to saying something like "ancient Greek world" or "ancient Europe"? I hope that makes sense, I don't know how else to word it in my Western brain.